


The Tale of Chat Blanc

by shizuumi151



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, and some bruising, but it should be okay, one mention of blood, there's like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shizuumi151/pseuds/shizuumi151
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chat Noir is a protector of Paris; one half of a super duo with Ladybug, he helps save innocent Parisians from Hawk Moth's twisted akuma. Even with all his bad luck, his black-and-red Lady Luck would make sure everything would go according to plan, and she could count on him to help when he can.</p><p>So what if he can't?</p><hr/><p>Companion fic to <a href="http://sakura-rose12.tumblr.com/">sakura-rose12</a>'s <a href="http://sakura-rose12.tumblr.com/post/131389911472/you-hurt-the-love-of-my-life-im-gonna-destroy-you">Chat Blanc comic</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of Chat Blanc

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sakura-rose12](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sakura-rose12).



> who let me think of the short prelude and ending to [her comic](http://sakura-rose12.tumblr.com/post/131389911472/you-hurt-the-love-of-my-life-im-gonna-destroy-you) that bowled the whole fandom over in feels :’)
> 
> Didn't expect my first entry into MLB to be full of angst, but I hope you enjoy! o/

“My, my,” Hawk Moth tutted. As her yo-yo dangled useless from her fingers, he gripped Ladybug by her delicate jaw. “And here I thought you were the lucky one.”

Clawing desperately at the chokehold on her throat, she couldn’t see past the bruises swelling up her eyes. Her muscles screamed with agony as her bones weighed lead inbetween, her eyes flickering stubborn electric.

“Let me go!” she bared her teeth, before her eyes swelled in their sockets. He lifted her off the ground to leave her flailing in the air, gasping on her airless chokes. “Hawk… _moth_ …!”

As her life was wrung out of her lungs, Hawk Moth’s chilled laughter ran frost down the knobs of her spine.

“Oh, but how I could just take your Miraculous right now…” he drawled, every word slime over her skin. “But then your precious little cat wouldn’t come, would he?” he spat acridly.

In the moments when he raised her sagging body, she saw everything in a blink—her parents glowing with open arms, Alya waving her over to their seats, Manon giggling with her gap-tooth grin, Tikki snuggling into the cup of her palms, and Adrien, winking, chuckling, smiling with those gorgeous, olive eyes at her—her life flashing behind her eyelids.

“There he is,” Hawk Moth glanced over her shoulder, before his gaze slid back, granite eyes whetted to steel. “Now. Let’s put on a nice show, shall we?” Arm rising, a wry smile sharpened his lip. “Play dead.”

As he hurled her down, her compact clinked on the stone floor.

* * *

Ladybug woke to the cracked earth moaning.

Her skull rolled thin and hard against the rumbling dirt, blue hair muddied and splayed, and her eyes flutter open to swimming greys. White noise pierced at a falsetto as pain burned her skin, settling deep in the marrow of her bones, nerves chafing raw and numb. In a fresh pain she bared her teeth, the smoky skies weighing on her brittle back. Throat grated dry, she pushed up with a strained jaw, elbows digging into cutting gravel, arms trembling, her head hanging low.

She choked on the soot lingering above the pavement. Her eyes screwed shut to keep her head from spilling open. The ghosts of last sensations raked at her skin, before flesh slamming into metal roused her gaze.

“N-No more, please!” Coughing, chest-deep. A crooked streetlamp. Wheezing. “I beg of you, have mercy!”

Ladybug blinked at the figure: a smear of grey and purple grovelling on the pavement.

A mirthless chuckle jarred her thoughts.

“Mercy? After showing none to my lady?” the voice taunted, resonant and honeyed. “You are _rich_ , Hawk Moth.”

 _Chat._ Her gaze whipped aside.

“Cha—…!” Ladybug forced the air out, but her voice faded away with her relief, melting into the metallic air.

Chat was metres away, tall, lithe, and alive. But a sneer marred his thin lips, and his crowing malice rooted her to the spot. He didn’t even look her way, his blonde locks bobbing gently as he advanced on Hawk Moth, like a tiger on lowly prey. He glowed in the wreckage of the street, the dim clouds thickening to a smothering grey, a white leather clinging to his skin. At a roll of thunder, at the slits in his amber eyes, a razor glint gripped Ladybug with dread.

_But his eyes were green._

Chat raised his hand beside his head, unwavering in his step.

“ **Cataclysm**.”

Black aura swirled into his open palm. Ladybug gaped. The burning energy locked into his fist with a single clench, and adrenaline rushed into her legs, firing her blood, while Chat stepped towards Hawk Moth, closer, closer, as she scrambled to her feet.

“Ch-Chat Blanc, this is madness!” Hawk Moth choked on his spit, bloodshot eyes pleading in hopeless hysteria. His pressed violet suit was in sad tatters, and his mask held a pitiful crack where blood trickled down his gaunt cheek. Chat’s grin was unwavering. “Spare me, p-please! I’ll do anything!”

“…Mm?” He tilted his head, a mildness to his levity. His soles scratched the asphalt inches in front of Hawk Moth. A breeze slipped by as Chat considered him. “Anything, you say?”

“Chat…” Ladybug cried, a mere whisper in the distance. She gulped down her pounding heart, sprinted past her binding pain. “Chat, _don’t…!_ ”

Gripping the chipped metal mask, Chat dropped to one knee, slashed amber piercing terrified grey. His palm raised, bleeding black.

“ _Then stay still_.”

His claws plunged for his face.

“NO!”

Ladybug crashed into his side, sending them hurtling down the street. Chat Blanc’s hands skidded along the ground, leaving a wake of scars where his Cataclysm grazed. But Ladybug cocooned him with her arms, shielding his body so every blow to hers was a muffled pulse to his.

They eventually rolled to a sliding halt, tossed rag-dolls in a pile, before Ladybug was straddling Chat, panting in a throbbing ache. She pinned him to the floor, squeezing the flesh of his wrist, before searching the mad fog that clouded Chat Blanc’s snarl.

“Chat!” she pleaded, wincing, looking frantically for an akuma. Her heart wrung at the sight of him, eyes souring as he writhed beneath her. “Chat, this isn’t you! Stop fighting!”

“Let me go! I’ll kill him! _I’ll kill him!_ ” he roared, a feral blaze swallowing his eyes. He thrashed against her hold, growing hoarse with rage, on the brink of insanity. “He’ll _pay_ for hurting my lady!”

“But I’m here! It’s me, Ladybug!” she yelled, tears streaking her cheeks. Her muscles howled in agony, but she channeled every remnant strength into trapping him in place. “Please, stop! You’re hurting people!” she cried, voice wobbling. “You’re hurting _me_!”

In a fraction of a glance, she saw his fist still pulsing with destruction, and his bell hiding veins of black. She squeezed her eyes in prayer.

_Please work._

She jerked his arm up in a silent apology, and slammed the flat of his palm on his bell. Immediately the silver crumpled to dying rust, cracking in two, and she wrenched away to avoid any skin.

The moment Chat went limp, the akuma fluttered from his cleaved bell.

“Got you!”

She groped for her compact, and captured the black butterfly in a single throw. She released it in a white glow without a word, releasing Miraculous Cure as it wafted into the dark skies. She held her breath when a dark mass seeped from Chat’s lolling frame, transforming his bleach white to night black, before she collapsed to her knees beside him.

“Chat…?” Ladybug scoured his glazed expression, not even daring to blink. She cupped his face, tender and searching. “Say something.”

Droplets landed on his cheeks, with not even a twitch on his resting face. Her breath hitched in her throat, and the rain hummed in a drizzle as she held his drowsing body close. His breath warmed her neck. His heart whispered at her chest.

“Don’t leave me like this, you silly cat,” she mumbled by his leather ears, into his flaxen locks, growing dark with rain. He smelled of iron, of soot, of mint, and she held him closer. “Don’t leave me…”

* * *

Chat Noir woke to the murmurs of his name.

His consciousness drifted between the darkness and the scent of strawberry chapstick. Of bread freshly baked. His lady, embracing him tight.

His eyes snapped open.

His legs were numb against flat stone, yet his torso was cradled in warm arms. His night vision spied the fine clavicles of Ladybug in the dark crook of her neck, and the proximity flushed him with heat.

“L…” he gulped, throat parched bone dry. “Ladybug…?”

The speed with which she gripped his shoulders was alarming. His head nearly rattled off his neck, before he was looking into the clear, wide lakes of her eyes.

“Chat?” she whispered, afraid to believe. His voice faded in the movements of her lips, the reverence in his name, before he was struck dumb by her breathless smile. “Oh, Chat!”

Ladybug swept in for a hug, more warm and firm than the last. Even with the sweat on his brow and the pound of his heart, Chat was convinced he was dreaming.

“What happened?” he glanced around, looking down. “Why…?”

When he spotted her compact on the ground, the memories came flooding back.

“Hawk Moth.” He tensed in a survey of the street, an arm guarding Ladybug on instinct. “Where is he?”

“He escaped,” she spoke softly, inviting his gaze back to hers. Her hands slid to his shoulders, squeezing reassuringly. “We’ll get him next time.”

Chat paused at a strain in her eyes, and stayed quiet. His eyes scanned over Ladybug’s close face, the bruising and swelling marring her skin. He ghosted his thumb over her cheek, unthinking.

“Aren’t you hurt, my lady…?”

He watched her arm rise, expecting her to bat him away. His brow raised when her hand instead rested on his.

“I’m fine,” she smiled, ever strong. “I’ll heal.”

“…I’m so sorry,” he bowed his head, brows knitting. “It’s all my fault.”

“Chat, it’s okay. I said I was—”

“If I had just come sooner, this would never have happened. I promised to protect you when you couldn’t, and I can’t even do this,” he squeezed her waist, regret pouring from his lips. His shaky breath went mute in the rain. “If I could’ve just stopped Hawk Moth, then you would’ve never gotten hur—”

His coiled features unwound when feather lips graced his forehead. The words left his mouth in a wisp.

“You can’t worry about things that could have happened. You can’t do everything you want,” she insisted. Her fingers tangled into his sopping hair. “You did everything you could, and that’s what counts.”

She looked down to gauge his response, only to see his wide-eyed wonder, open-mouthed and rosy.

“What’s the matter?” Her giggle chimed sweet like her kiss, and the rhythm and warmth within released doves in his chest. “Cat got your tongue?”

“N-Not at all,” he cleared his throat audibly. The rain quieted around them. “But you’re being quite…generous. As of yet,” he swallowed, salvaging his composure in a waggle of his brows. “But by all means, continue.”

He grinned like Cheshire when she rolled her eyes, and a wash of relief relaxed him when he could see his feisty lady peeking through again.

Yet she didn’t let go.

“It’s just…I’m so glad you’re okay,” Ladybug admitted, relief shining in her eyes. But Chat’s widened as she teetered forward, the energy sapping from her body. “I’m so glad…you’re…”

He had one hand shoot back to prop himself up, to catch her weight going lax on his. He nudged her head lolling onto his shoulder, and moved his arm so he now cradled her.

“Easy now…” he soothed, green eyes lidded in care. He shadowed her from the dwindling shower, and looked up to the sunrays breaking through the cloud cover. He shook the dampness from his hair. “Never did like getting wet.”

He spied the elegant arch of the Eiffel Tower, glinting in the distance, before he looked down at Ladybug at rest, the delicate cadence of her breaths bringing peace to his heart. Parting her bangs, he planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Well played, my lady.”

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to go for the French dub's "Bien joué!"/"Well played!" at the end of a mission instead of the Korean translation; who knows what they'll say in the English dub~
> 
> I'm a touch anxious since this is my first fic for the Miraculous Ladybug (a delightful show! :D), so if you've any feedback to give I'd much appreciate it ^^


End file.
